In Search Of Wisconsin's Top Chef

Joel McNally's take on Walker's hypocritical brown bag nonsense:

Politicians who feast in glass restaurants shouldn’t throw hard rolls.

McNally hits it right on with this:

But there is something particularly jarring about Walker presenting himself as your average working guy carrying a bag lunch.

It’s all those average working guys with bag lunches employed by Milwaukee County who have been laid off or had their wages and benefits slashed with unpaid furloughs and other contractual givebacks.

Walker has claimed the right to refuse to live up to county contracts negotiated with unions under special “emergency powers” as county executive. The emergency was that Walker was running for governor and did not want to raise taxes enough to pay the county’s bills.

Walker, who has eliminated jobs throughout his tenure as county executive and heads a government on the brink of bankruptcy, now claims to have the power to create -- citing a totally made-up number -- 250,000 jobs as governor of Wisconsin.

A whole lot of Milwaukee County workers believe job creation should begin at home.

A working class hero Walker is not. His lack of respect for the basic principles of labor relations was demonstrated when Walker submitted a county budget that included drastic wage and benefit reductions that had never been negotiated with county unions.

Rather than bargaining in good faith with unions to reach a mutually beneficial agreement through a process of give and take, Walker expects union leaders to enter into sham negotiations where working people do all the giving and Walker does all the taking.

Working people in Milwaukee County who really do have to eat bag lunches saw their family-supporting jobs disappear as Walker outsourced their work to private, profit-making companies operated by wealthy campaign contributors.

McNally once said that he doesn't read blogs, but one's got to wonder...